Letters to the Editor

Published 10:00 pm, Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Like many citizens of Seattle, it was with sadness that I read of the passing of former Seattle City Councilwoman Jeannette Williams. Williams was a champion of civil rights in our city. A heterosexual woman who fought for the rights of Seattle's gay citizens long before it was politically correct. She was a steward of our parks and lobbied to support projects important to the city such as the new West Seattle Bridge.

Politicians today should take a good look at Williams' integrity and legacy as a public servant who lived her life well to make our city a more beautiful and more enlightened place. Thank you, Jeannette, for all of your hard work on behalf of our city. My thoughts of support go out to her friends and family.

I am a member of the King County 4-H Dog Project. It has come to my attention that not only is the King County Council considering shutting down the King County Fair, but also withdrawing the funding for the whole 4-H program. If King County withdraws its funding, then Washington State University will not fund the program, and all of King County 4-H will be shut down.

The King County Fair, in its present state, is not a successful and money-making opportunity for the county, so it is understandable that the council is frustrated. What is not understandable, however, is why the council wants to close it down. There are huge opportunities for improvement that would launch the fair into a huge success.

A change in location from Enumclaw on the outskirts of the county to a more central location, such as Redmond's Marymoor Park, would draw many more people who don't want to pay for overpriced gas. Additionally, the idea that the entire 4-H program should be shut down is absurd. It is very rare that such a worthwhile program is developed. Even within my own club, I have seen the benefits of 4-H. Countless shy young kids have come to our club and have been transformed into confident and productive workers.

The County Council must realize that there are better ways to cut spending than to punish hard-working children and teens.

Interesting, isn't it, how when things are going well the president receives the credit in letters to the editor, and he graciously accepts all of the laurels he can get. But when things go badly, these same letter writers blame Congress, regardless of who is at fault or if anyone even is at fault.

We have again been asked to choose the tired Republican corporate philosophy that has proved itself as massively flawed, ineffective and seriously partial to corporate welfare -- a philosophy that has consistently ignored the needs of workers, families, the elderly, the poor and middle class.

Assaulted by misleading and inflammatory ads that have been proven false, we've been asked to choose a governor. Those Dino Rossi ads assume that our best decision is the one made while we are not calm and composed, but when misled, angry, and stampeded.

We are being asked to ignore our worries about our jobs, wallets, health care, mortgages and other real concerns. Instead we should be fired up by wildly false Rossi campaign messages having nothing to do with what keeps us awake at night.

Do you think all that false nonsense about misplaced sex offenders, tribal bribes and the need to "peel off" children's services in order to protect children from their own government is real?

Does any of that have anything to do with how Rossi would govern?

In reality Rossi's state campaign strategy underlines the decline and possible demise of the Republican Party as a positive force for good everywhere in this country.

In this and most states all the Republican Party has is panicked desperation and poorly-thought out strategies.

A Barack Obama administration has already committed itself to change. Voters are endorsing that commitment in large numbers. The Democratic Party is able to attract votes during this election because Republicans have thrown virtue, wisdom, common sense and civic duty into the gutter. The John McCain campaign demonstrates this every day.

Obama and the Democrats are committed to lifting our national well-being out of the gutter.

Chris Gregoire has demonstrated and proven that civic well-being is her highest priority for each of us.

Rossi is of that other ilk. His ads proclaim his poor campaign priorities and prove how shallow a candidate he really is.

There's an incoming federal administration committed to massive civic change and restoration of America's real core values. Do you want to be a part of America returning to its true values?

Or do you want to drive forward while looking through the rear-view mirror in a state with a shallow, tale-telling, stampeding wrong-road red state governor?

A governor like all those elected officials other states are throwing out of office wholesale?

Before you vote, visit a nursing home. There are many who don't have visitors and would love to have somebody to talk to.

Maybe their friends and relatives are too busy or maybe it is too painful to see a loved one suffer. And when you go, if you are asked, "Can you please, help me die?" (as a registered nurse, I have been asked many times), answer yes. Then vote yes on I-1000. I believe IF people would visit a nursing home, I-1000 would pass overwhelmingly.

On the surface, Initiative 1000 sounds like a personal choice we may want. Frankly, however, a competent, rational person who wants to end his life early will find a way to do so.

We already have the right to refuse treatment; we have advance directives, we have sedation for the imminently dying. Patients gain the least from this law, HMOs and insurance companies benefit the most.

The 77 million baby boomers lurching toward their declining years will strain the profits of HMOs and insurance companies. The original writer of the Oregon legislation (I-1000's a virtual copy of it) was an HMO executive. HMOs and insurance companies have by far the most to gain from a Yes vote: assisted suicide cheaply eliminates some of their most costly policyholders, thereby improving corporate profits.

Booth Gardner, the front-man for the initiative, admitted in The New York Times (Dec. 2, 2007) that this is only a first step toward a gradual shift of the culture so laws with more latitude will be passed. "I wish we could do a more liberal law. We're not going to go further than that now."

As a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge in WWII who is still being treated for "Old Man's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" (PTSD), and as the screenwriter of certain films of psychological application, including "Rebel Without a Cause," "Sybil," "The Rack," "The Outsider: The Ira Hayes Story," among others, I am deeply concerned that Sen. John McCain, whom I admire, might be suffering from PTSD also, some symptoms of which are:

Sudden, often irrational outbursts of punishing rage.

Erratic and impulsive behavior.

Unpredictable judgment and mystifying snap decisions.

Deep and long-lasting guilt about atrocities committed or buddies left on the field to die and an overwhelming and permanent need to atone.

Depression, anxiety, unbearable nightmares, insomnia and dread of night intruders or of damaging others while asleep.

Without questioning McCain's heroism or patriotism, it does appear -- from his recent public behavior -- that he shows strong signs of this painful, haunting and, among combat veterans, increasingly widespread condition. This proud Navy man, in whose mind gallant ancestors stretching back for generations might create a "conscience" of great power in the descendant that seems ever-watchful and ready to criticize, anything short of perfection, may be already suffering pressure along with his pride, to be a flawless man.

It can make a man of the senator's sensibility, who had also witnessed hundreds of his companions burned alive on the deck of his home aircraft carrier, and then made to suffer the "humiliation" of capture by the Vietnamese, assume an overwhelming guilt just for surviving. It occurs to me that this guilt might have played at least a small part in making him extend his own internment to its limit rather than reporting back to duty when release was first offered. With PTSD, one is never fully self-forgiven. Yet no one can question the bravery or honor of his ultimate choice to face more torture.

Coupled with the partial list of symptoms described above, one wonders if the astonishing choice of his nearly unknown vice presidential nominee, made so hectically it shocked the nation, might not have been an example of the wounding effects of that same PTSD rather than simply of the man, if indeed McCain suffers from the condition. The possibility of Gov. Sarah Palin becoming commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces makes me and multitudes of others quail.

To my knowledge, no important media person or leading newspaper has come forward publicly to put the locked-up question on the table for all to see, and I implore you to invite a panel of experts in the field of PTSD to discuss it openly and publicly in your pages as a key to understanding McCain, and to show as reference whatever supporting or opposing documentation may exist, beyond what the 15 minute-and-don't-take-notes visit to the files were allowed to reveal.

It is a sad question to raise, but voters deserve to know the truth before we go to the polls, or too many lives might be the future sacrifice for continuing silence now.

Stewart Stern

Seattle

(sent in by Bill Arnold)

CHURCH AND STATE

I did not read Kathleen Taylor's Oct. 26 column, but my eye landed on the phrase "The First Amendment mandates a separation of church and state: For the benefit of both religion and government, neither should encroach on the other."

Oh how I wish I could write about the bad think (translated into your language) I have found but do not have the time.

There must be many letters asking you for the reference for the mandate of separation of church and state and that neither should encroach on the other. Such a concept is morally wrong. A religious leader should speak up about the Holocaust. You should speak up against practices in which one is forcibly harmed (sacrifices to Baal). Let the church defend itself and show everyone why they are right in free will practices (They may be judged by a higher court if the state is right).

When the state gets involved in church practices is just as bad.

I haven't even gotten to the question of the definition of church since there are many and even the alleged Christian Church is not a church. For proof there are many important questions whose answer can be read in Acts 23:6-8.

Gregg M. Weber

Seattle

TRANSIT

As a 19-year-old Washington state voter, I write to express my strong support for the Sound Transit Proposition 1 ballot measure and congratulate the Mass Transit Now Team and the Sound Transit Board of Directors for their excellent work in getting this transit package to the voters of Washington state in November. I believe this package is the common-sense approach we need for our transportation system.

Proposition 1 would expand bus service and light rail throughout the Puget Sound, which is critically important to decongesting our freeways and highways such as Interstates 5 and state Route 520. It would also provide much-needed alternatives and more environmentally friendly ways of commuting to our citizens. I believe that the positive impact this ballot measure would have on our environment and the fact it will enable us to move our transportation system forward to address the challenges we face in the Puget Sound and at the same time improve the quality of life for our citizens, justifies passing it on Nov. 4.

I will be voting in favor of Proposition 1 because I believe the time for action is now.

Nathan Olson

Everett

VOTE FOR THE CONSTITUTION

After 4 long years of presidential campaigning it has finally boiled down to this question, and our votes will decide the answer.

Is our Constitution still the bedrock of our laws that govern us, or has it become an annoying piece of paper malleable in the hands of a Harvard lawyer? The voters turned down both Al Gore and John Kerry and neither of them were on record espousing the socialist agenda that Sen. Barack Obama has leaked out amid his flowery rhetoric of hope and change.

Sen. John McCain may be a mushy Republican "reaching across party lines" on a few too many occasions to suit a right winger, but at least he has produced a birth certificate that proves he is a natural born citizen ( www.americasright.com). Unless McCain wins by a landslide, the Democratic Party leaders will continue to think that hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign donations is all that is needed to get a clever anti-constitutional socialist lawyer elected. Race and religion matters are just the smoke covering up this most important issue.

Vote FOR the Constitution. Vote FOR a party-split federal government. Vote for a Republican White House and a Democratic Congress.